Have you ever been in a conversation wherein someone introduced a word or concept that you totally misunderstood or just flat out didn’t know about?

Most of us, trying to hold onto our pride, will go along with the conversation and frantically Google-search what we didn’t know after the fact.

Throughout my university student life, I often found myself at the mercy of scholars pontificating in abstract terms with which I was supposed to absorb and engage. “Welcome to Academia! You know nothing. Catch up.”

It’s one thing to be unfamiliar with new ideas or archaic philosophies, but what about the words we do know whose definitions have been changed?

The Battle over Language

One example from my own journey has been my passion for social justice. I was a well-meaning follower of Christ who had compassion for people in need and I felt compelled by God to find ways to serve and advocate for them. After all, there are so many Bible verses that call us as believers to stand for the oppressed (e.g., Isaiah 1:17 ), to speak up for the voiceless (e.g., Prov 31:8-9), and to do justice (e.g., Micah 3:6).

While my intentions were good, I did find myself being conflicted for a time by this “war of words”—namely, the definition of justice under which I was operating was not the same as those within the social justice movement.  Biblical justice is a characteristic of God himself and cannot be separated from His righteousness (Ps 89:14), meaning that justice is defined by God’s own perfectly good nature and, by extension, what He says is good and evil. The current definition of justice in our culture is more transient, dependent on the distribution of privilege and equitable opportunities for all. I had some understanding of this discrepancy at first, but I didn’t see a huge problem with it. I thought, “Hey, we are all working towards something good! There is room for everyone to help!”

I came to discover, however, that my views as a Christian began to exclude me from different social justice efforts in my city. Most striking was when I was uninvited to a human trafficking working group because of my stance on abortion. If you weren’t pro-choice, you weren’t welcome to help.

This was a huge wake-up call for me. Weren’t we all working for justice? Wasn’t everyone’s voice welcome? Can’t everyone do justice?

By the grace of God, I started to realize that we don’t get to decide what is good or right. That’s God’s decision. We must have that fear of him—that respect for what He says—if we are to follow in His ways (Prov 9:10). This is not subject to the values this culture deems are mandatory to be a “good person.”

This is quite possibly the most sinister form of deceit: to take words we have known our whole lives—especially the good things that God defines—and change their meaning to accommodate a different agenda. Love, justice, equality, reality, and the list goes on.

Our culture is in a battle of language. This was a battle I was wholly unprepared for upon entering university, and as such was taken by bad ideas… for a time.

Awakened to a Biblical Worldview

My journey with apologetics was spurred on by my becoming a mom. I had grown up in church here in Nova Scotia and had a relationship with Jesus since I was very young. My faith was largely an experiential one. I knew God was real because I “just knew it.”

I didn’t see a big problem with this. I studied the Bible and believed it to be the inerrant word of God. But going deeper into biblical theology and entertaining apologetics debates was something for which I had no interest. However, as we often do, I married someone quite opposite to me.

My husband is someone who had to seek out truth for himself, who grappled with the big apologetics questions and came to the firm conclusion that God is real and good. It dawned on me that, as I raise my kids, I may have such a personality like my husband’s to disciple, so I wanted to be prepared to answer their questions.

My introduction to Christian apologetics was the book Mama Bear Apologetics, wherein author Hillary Morgan Ferrer does a fantastic job of breaking down big ideas in today’s culture to show what worldviews and ideologies have fed their inception.

This was a big eye-opener because I realized for the first time how much of a humanistic, post-modern worldview had seeped into my own way of thinking. I discovered that I had adopted some post-modern ideas in the name of being loving and kind to other people. This was logical laziness on my part, and it wasn’t until I saw how misguided these ideologies were that I started to ask some hard questions about what it meant to have a biblical worldview.

Taking a Stand for Truth

To make the stand that there is one reality and one truth has become labelled as a hateful, exclusive stance to take. All the while, so-called “diversity” is preached with the conviction of, “All are welcome except those who don’t see things our way.” Was I willing to be misunderstood because I didn’t comply with the values of our world?

God has been so faithful to me throughout my life, even when I’ve come to wrong conclusions. When our hearts are bent toward Him, He is faithful to lead us through. I don’t pretend to have it all figured out. There are still questions I ask of God, and I am seeking out His truth for the answers.

Apologetics has been a gift to me, both on academic and personal levels. My confidence in Christ has been built up and my faith strengthened both in what I have been learning and in the beautiful brothers and sisters in Christ I have been fortunate enough to meet. What I crave is the connection with fellow believers who are on a similar journey. We don’t have all the answers, but we serve a God who does.

As the Publications Coordinator for Ratio Christi Canada, I’m excited to be working with an organization that values putting good resources in the hands of people asking questions. Because questions are not the problem. Insufficient answers are. And for too long, many Christians have opposed intellectual discourse within the Body of Christ, either being hostile to theology and apologetics or else relegating them to the world of Christian academia. But every believer is called to engage in both, loving God with all their minds (e.g., Matt. 22:37; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Pet. 3:15).

We are in a war of words in our culture. This isn’t a war with people but with ideas. We must discern truth from falsehood, and to do that, we need the Holy Spirit. We need to know His truth and not the multi-reality spin we are fed in this world.

Ask the big questions and seek God for the big answers, whether you are a mom of littles, a veteran of the faith, or a new believer. Wherever you are on your journey, God is faithful to those who diligently seek Him (Heb 11:6) and He will see you through.